


Infinity Times Two

by bladespark



Series: Hylian Mathematics [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Implied Sexual Content, Love, M/M, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladespark/pseuds/bladespark
Summary: Link has recalled all of his past lives, and the way he always loved Zelda in them.  Sheik, though, is uncertain if he wants to remember.  How can he continue to do what he must, to be Sheik, if he remembers a thousand years of being Zelda?  And how can he bear remembering a thousand years of loving Link when he has a new, masculine body that he's certain Link could never love?





	Infinity Times Two

"I'll stay. I don't remember whatever it is that you remember. But I'll stay, through the fight, and whatever comes after, even if it's a thousand lifetimes more."

Sheik knew it was an extravagant declaration, but he meant every bit of it. He sealed his affirmation with a kiss, pulling Link's head to his and kissing him with fervent intensity. Link kissed back with matching warmth, and then greater, the kiss turning passionate as Link's tongue pressed into Sheik's mouth to explore there. Link's arms were suddenly tight around him, Link's hands roaming, caressing, touching with sudden confidence.

But then he would be confident, wouldn't he, now that he remembered a thousand years or more of past lives? Sheik shivered, feeling his old sense of inadequacy come rushing back. What was he, compared to all that?

"I love you," murmured Link as he broke off the kiss. "I love you so much. I have loved you for an eternity."

Sheik's eyes went wide, and he felt a strange tremor go through him. Part of him thrilled to hear those words, but part of him quailed. He and Link had barely seen each other in passing until this past week, and Sheik was young and had never so much as kissed anyone before kissing Link. What did he know of love? How could he bear the burden of an eternity of love? He'd promised to be with Link for lifetimes, and yet suddenly he felt that promise to be rash, foolish, the promise of a child.

Link apparently saw the fear in his eyes, for he let go of Sheik and said gently, "I'm sorry. That was too much, I'm sure. I remember a thousand years of us, but you've known only a week. Forgive me."

Sheik sighed, trying to get his feelings to settle down somehow. "It's okay. I just... I don't even know. This is all very confusing. Maybe I should try and remember the past too. You said I was there..."

"Yes. You've always been by my side. But all those years are a heavy weight. It changes things, remembering." He took Sheik's hand, squeezing it as he said soberly, "Think about it before you choose. You've said a few things about being Sheik and not Zelda. Will a thousand years of being Zelda in your mind change that?"

Sheik blinked. "I...don't know. I can hardly remember being her at all. I was so young. Seven years in this new life seems like a long time." He shook his head. "Saying that makes a thousand years seem like an absurdity. How can I even imagine a thousand years?"

"More than a thousand." Link sighed softly. "But on the other hand, I'm still Link, still who I've always been, through all that. Remembering didn't make me stop being me. The person you are is not that different from the person you would be if you'd been able to live as Zelda all this time instead."

Sheik nodded. "It's still frightening. I _need_ to be Sheik. I can't become Zelda, not yet. I... I don't even know if I really want to."

"There's no requirement for you to do it." Link reached out, touched Sheik's arm. "I will try to not presume on old memories, to treat you as Sheik and not Zelda."

Sheik hesitated, then shook his head. "Then we'd return to the way things were, the way I thought they were, when I thought I was nothing, and you the perfect hero. How could I regard you and I as equal, when you have a thousand years worth of knowledge and I know almost nothing at all?"

"Sheik..." Link looked pained. "Your worth has nothing to do with the length of your experience."

Sheik looked at Link, and suddenly he felt he wanted to know, not even because of his insecurity, but because he wanted the memories of all they'd done together. He wanted to know about the good times and the struggles and everything in between. He saw the memory stone lying where it had fallen from Link's fingers, and he scooped it up. "I believe you. But I still want to know," he said. "How did you do it?"

Link gave Sheik a long look, then nodded. "Try to cast your mind back. Concentrate on the idea of the first thing you can remember, and will it, insist that the stone provide it."

"Right." Sheik gripped the stone tightly, concentrating. _The first thing._ He could sense the power in the stone. It was a very small power, and it seemed to do nothing, but he continued to focus. Suddenly there was a sense of resistance, and as he pushed against it as hard as he could there followed a sense of release, of giving way, and then the memories flooded into his mind.

At first it was a chaotic jumble, a cacophony of the past, no one moment able to stand out from the rest. But as the flood of memory settled into his mind, patterns began emerging. The core of them was the repeated conflict, himself—herself, as Zelda—and Link facing down whatever form the Demon of Power might take.

Another pattern was that there had been times of peace, after times of conflict, and Zelda and Link had been together in most of those times. Memory upon memory of Link flooded into Sheik, and he knew, as he remembered all the centuries of love between them, that there had been nothing reckless in his earlier declaration, there was only simple fact. They would be together always, trapped by fate, a curse and a blessing in one.

Sheik slowly became aware of his body, the tide of memory receding ever so slightly. He was on his knees on the ground, trembling, and Link was beside him, holding him. He gave another shudder as a deeper awareness swept over him. After all those memories of Zelda, of being female, Sheik's body felt suddenly wrong. It had felt wrong when he'd first assumed the guise of a male Sheikah, with the aid of Impa's magic. It had taken only a few months, though, of training, exercise, and simply living in his new body for it to feel comfortable. Now all that was undone, and his own skin seemed alien.

Link's arms around him, though, felt familiar, and he leaned into that embrace.

"How are you doing?"

"Goddesses, I don't even know." Sheik trembled again. Even his _voice_ sounded wrong now, too low, too rough. "Suddenly being myself feels wrong. My body is wrong. My magic is wrong! Shadow was never my power before. Everything feels off-balance."

"I'm sorry." Link squeezed Sheik tighter. Sheik turned and clung to him, holding Link tightly in turn, and without even really thinking about it he kissed Link. He remembered passion, suddenly, and it was easy, oh so easy to deepen the kiss, to turn it from a soft thing of comfort to a hungry, intense, demanding thing.

With a sudden shock of realization, Sheik pulled back, cheeks flushed. "Sorry. I... Ah... I forgot myself there."

"You've nothing to apologize for. I've kissed you far too often over the years to find kissing you now shocking or uncomfortable." Link bent in and kissed Sheik back, with every bit as much intensity to it, and his hands began caressing again, stroking over Sheik's body.

The touch felt right and wrong at once; so familiar, and yet moving over the alien, masculine form of Sheik, and not the softer body of Zelda. Who was he, even? How could he be Sheik as he needed to, with all these memories of Zelda? And how could he love Link as he wanted to with this body?

Feeling himself trembling once more, Sheik broke from the kiss.

"Sheik?" said Link softly.

"Who is Sheik? How... How can I be Sheik? I must be him somehow, Zelda isn't safe yet. But how? How can I fit back into this form? And how can... How can I love you the way I want to, the way I always did? It's not just some illusion, or some partial thing. I'm _male._ I'm not sure I know how to be a man right now, with so much memory of being Zelda, but I certainly can't be female for you. I _can't_ be Zelda now. So I can't... I can't..." He shuddered again, violently. He wanted Link so badly. All the memories of their past lovemaking swirled around him, and met with a very present desire, but where could that even lead now?

"Sheik." Link cupped his cheek gently. "It's okay, really it is. I love you, the person you are, Sheik or Zelda. I don't love you because of your body." He gave Sheik a swift up and down glance and added, his cheeks suddenly turning pink, "Though that doesn't hurt at all. You make a handsome man."

Sheik felt himself flushing again. "Oh. I... But you... I mean... I thought you were straight. I can't remember any... Uhm..."

Link chuckled. "Mostly. You wouldn't know about the exception thus far because, ah, it was rather private. Nobody else was involved, exactly."

Sheik tilted his head, puzzled.

"It was when I wielded the Four Sword, not the Master Sword."

Sheik blinked. He had memories of several occasions when Link had drawn the Four Sword and become for people, each seeming to draw on a different aspect of the original Link's personality. But he had barely glimpsed the split hero, for Zelda had not aided him along the way, she had been locked away, sealed in crystal or turned to stone. "I don't understand."

Link shrugged. "The young male libido can be a ferocious thing. Perhaps you know that, considering your current body. When I was divided, it seemed natural for us to experiment with each other, since we were also one. It was an odd kind of masturbation, I suppose." His cheeks were furiously pink, but he continued. "I learned then that I don't find the male body abhorrent. I've been straight largely because the person I loved was always _you_ , and until now you were always Zelda. But I certainly don't find Sheik unattractive." He smiled warmly, and Sheik felt much of his fear and confusion melting away.

"Oh, Link. How can you be so perfect?"

"I'm far from perfect. You have to know how many times I've failed. I'm just doing the best I can. And I'll do the best I can to love you, Sheik, if that's what you want."

"It's what I want more than anything," said Sheik fervently.

And as the night deepened and Epona grazed peacefully nearby, Link did indeed love Sheik, with every bit of passion that he'd ever shown to Zelda. Sheik found it in him to return that passion, and by the time they at last rested together, their bedrolls laid out as one, Sheik found himself at home in his skin once more, for the way Link had explored his body had taught its shape to him all over again. 

There would come a time, eventually, for him to be Zelda again, yet he found himself wondering if there might not also be times, in that hoped-for peace that might come after destiny worked itself out once again, for him to be Sheik as well.

"Even after a thousand years and more," he said to Link, his voice contented and drowsy, "you bring new joys into my life."

"I hope to be able to for a thousand years more," was Link's warm reply. "I could curse this destiny, perhaps. I did for a moment, remembering the weight of constant conflict, every success only a delay, yet in truth I think I will bless it, because it means I have an eternity with you."

"Yes," said Sheik softly. "I don't really remember what came before, but I know I once gave up the power of a goddess, in order to enter this cycle with you. I don't regret that one bit. An eternity with you is worth any cost."

Link's only response was a vague, happy murmur, his eyes closed as sleep claimed him. Sheik let his own eyes slide closed, and the two rested together, for the first time, and as they had countless times before, and would countless times again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final bit of Hylian Mathematics. Although someday if I'm bored I might write up the sex scene that's only implied here.
> 
> P.S. If you'd like to see me talk about writing, my works in progress, other creative endeavors, and my life in general, check out [my Dreamwidth blog](https://bladespark.dreamwidth.org/).)


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